New NZ Government will have Maori ministers

NEW ZEALAND: The party representing New Zealand's indigenous Maori people will get its first Cabinet posts under a multiparty deal Prime Minister-elect John Key has signed yesterday to form a center-right minority Government.

In return for the Maori Party's support, Key agreed to back off on his pledge to scrap the special seats in Parliament set aside for indigenous Maori lawmakers. He also said he would review a law nationalising the nation's shoreline - an area Maori claim they had traditionally owned but was "stolen" by a law passed in 2004.

The new government will be sworn in Wednesday, Key told reporters Sunday after signing deals with three small parties, adding the votes of 11 lawmakers to his center-right National Party's tally to give it 70 votes in the 122-seat Parliament.

The coalition deals with the rightist Act Party and centrist United Future Party put the new government in position to carry out Key's campaign pledges to cut taxes, build infrastructure to boost the flailing economy and soften the ambitious environmental policies of outgoing Prime Minister Helen Clark.

"We face very significant economic challenges ahead," Key told reporters. "And the way out of economic difficulty is through economic growth."

One of Key's priorities in government will be to amend New Zealand's greenhouse-gas emissions trading scheme to make it more favorable to business and farming.

Sunday, AP